Following on from my last post, just quickly, before I prepare myself to co-direct the first retreat of the second Be. Leadership intake...

Psychological projection is a useful way to understand discomfort with diversity. When people react negatively (or overly positively for that matter, in that bleeding-heart liberal way they do) to another culture, lifestyle, or belief system, a useful exploration may be:

1. How aware of — and comfortable with — their own culture, lifesyle, or belief system are they?
2. How much are they feeling envious of the others' well-defined culture, lifestyle, or belief system?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Authentically valuing diversity has nothing to do with understanding others. It's all about awareness of and comfort with self.

I get a lot of people telling me how wonderful, amazing, inspirational, etc, etc, they think I am. To be honest, it gets a bit tedious and it's difficult to respond to such compliments, because they are often unnecessary.

Mostly, I'm just out doing unadmirable, uninspiring stuff, like having lunch.

Over the years I've developed a standard response: "Thanks, it takes one to know one." It graciously returns the compliment and, unless the person is a complete neanderthal, they get the wit and, usually, any disability-related tension is dispelled.

"State housing should be a stepping stone and was no longer about a home for life," Prime Minister John Key says on Stuff.co.nz

That's all very well, but everyone "should" have equal –or at least equitable – access, opportunity and resources to acquire and retain the basic need of shelter.

They don't. Until they do, the Prime Minister is failing to see the bigger picture. 

I had a huge response on Facebook to the post I wrote last night about my dealings with Housing New Zealand. I appreciate the support from people who have commented and tweeted.

What has been interesting as a by-product are the other stories people have told about Housing NZ - admittedly they are hearsay but they give me cause for concern:

• "a tetraplegic woman with very high medical needs being kicked out of her fully customised modified home of 15yrs to give it up for a refuge family of 9 with no access requirements"
• "a person who had been asking for 7 years to be moved out of a Freemans Bay HNZ flat where drugs, prostitution and every other vice was going on...even though HNZ had 14 days to sort it out, get rid of the tenant who was terrorising everybody else they sat on their hands until [they were] threatened with public exposure"
• "someone being evicted with 18 hours' notice"
• "a HNZ worker asking why a client with a major anxiety disorder couldnt just get out and look for a house"

• "cases of highly unsafe and unsanitary environments not fit for animals to live in"

If these constitute the usual tip of the proverbial iceberg, what is going on in Housing NZ? Where is the consistency and communication of rational policy in a Government-run organisation established to ensure the shelter of those impacted by an inaccessible, over-priced, unstable housing market?

Last night's TV3 Campbell Live leaders debate between John Key and Phil Goff was yet another display of adolescent bravado, reminiscent of a high school debate. The moot: That I am better than you.

School bully Key, smug about getting A's in accounting and used to winning, openly sulked when Goff, not as natually gifted at the subject, showed that he'd knuckled down and done his homework. Key sulked and scowled openly when Goff unexpectedly rebuffed his right-wing economic arguments.

Goff, the nerdy guy that hangs out with the girls because he gets teased by the boys for having feelings, smirked when he realised he'd remembered the stuff right. I imagine he went off set to giggle in delight with his girlfriends at his accidental cleverness.

Activism is a great activity for young people. Angry, young, passionate people make great activists. They show the world, in no certain terms, what needs to change.

Great activists, as they mature, make great advocates. They have the experience and confidence to help others, who lack experience and confidence, to get what they need.

Great advocates, as they mature, make great leaders. They have the wisdom to create opportunities for open conversations between people from different walks of life in order to create the change that activists highlight and adv0cates navigate.

Seth Godin recently wrote: "Managers want authority. Leaders take responsibility."

I tried to watch the recent so-called Leaders' Debate between Key and Goff but, quite frankly, I got bored. But the little I did see seemed very much like the two arguing for authority, not taking responsibility.

I have no confidence in the current political system in this country nor, generally, those who partake in it, because it is polarised and ego driven. If, as we are told, MPs were our elected, representative leaders, they would be collaborating and negotiating, being generous and creative. They would be taking responsibility for creating a constructive, civil leadership environment. They would understand that there are no "right" policies and decisions — there are simply outcomes, good and bad, from any policy or decision, to which a plethora of sensible responses are needed.

Seth Godin is a well-known entrepreneur. I'm not even sure what his claim to infamity is, I confess - hang on, let me Google...

SETH GODIN has written thirteen books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. 

He's may not be specific but he's a great thinker.

Here's a rendition of an off-the-cuff talk I made to Rainbow Youth's AGM this afternoon (with some added bits).

Happy birthday! That's what AGMs are really – birthday parties for organisations – so it's great to see so many of you here. I'm here, not because I'm young, but because I'm one of Rainbow Youth's patron's, which makes me feel quite old. But I'm not as old as most patrons...just so you know.

I work in the area of social change, and I often find it hard to explain what exactly I do. So I'm going to demonstrate it. At the end of this talk, by listening to it, you will have changed, just a little, as will I have also, simply by saying it. And that, in essence, is the nature of social change.

Address to the Creative Spaces Network Forum convened by Arts Access Aotearoa Wednesday 8 June 2011 Museum Hotel, Wellington

Kia ora tatau katoa te whanau tapatapahi ana. Greetings my creative family. If this was an episode of “Stars in their Eyes”, I’d be saying, “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be the Shirtless Dancing Guy.” But I’ll keep my shirt on. And I won’t dance.